GUEST: They're 1980 Topps basketball cards that I purchased in 1990.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: A good friend of mine talked me into purchasing them.

Thought they'd be a good investment.

APPRAISER: Well, it's so exciting, I haven't...

It's been a long time since I've seen a box of the 1980 Topps basketball unopened like that.

And, and I got to confess, like a lot of people that, that may see this appraisal is, I had the same box, and I opened the cards, and I also separated the little perforated panels.

So the 1980 Topps basketball set.

It did come with three cards per panel.

They had 88 different panels, and they were perforated.

So to see 'em that aren't s, separated apart, it becomes very rare.

The highlight of the set is that they combined Larry Bird and Magic Johnson rookie cards on the same panel.

This was mostly due to the, their fierce competition they had in college.

On the front right there, they actually show how you can separate them, although, of course, in the packs, they do come, uh, still connected.

And that's Larry Bird out there on the left.

Julius Erving, scoring leader, in the center.

Magic Johnson on the right side.

On the 88 different panels, they had Larry Bird, his card, actually on six different panels.

Magic Johnson's was actually on four different panels, but just only the one panel that had both of their, both of them on the same card.

Have you ever been compelled to open them?

GUEST: No.

(chuckles) APPRAISER: No, okay.

Well, it's a good thing that you didn't.

They're in pristine condition because of that.

How much did you pay for 'em?

GUEST: I paid $1,000 for 'em.

APPRAISER: Okay.

And where was it that you bought these?

GUEST: A store.

APPRAISER: At a hobby store.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: And so I imagine that at that time, in 1990, uh, that was a lot of money for a box of cards.

GUEST: Oh... APPRAISER: But that's where the market was at that time.

GUEST: A lot of money for me.

APPRAISER: And when this box came out in 1980, it was nine dollars, or 25 cents a pack, depending how you bought it.

Really, for any basketball card collector who's collecting '80s Hall-of-Famers, the top of everyone's want list is the Bird/Magic rookie card and a Michael Jordan rookie.

You have one of the two here that you may, uh, get when you, if you, if you were to open this box.

So in this market right now, that box at auction would bring $25,000 to $30,000.

GUEST: Oh, nice.

APPRAISER: The packs themselves will sell for no less than $1,000 each-- one individually.

Now, perhaps because a $30,000 purchase has less of a buyer pool than, than a pack for $1,000 to $1,500, it's not uncommon for the boxes still to sell at auction right now for the, between the $25,000 to $30,000.

Now, the next thing everybody asks is, why so much?

Why $25,000 to $30,000?

That gets into a really interesting part of sports card collecting.

And that's the speculative nature of, what do you get in there?

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: You have eight cards per pack.

You have 36 packs, you have 88 different panels.

Your odds of getting that rookie card with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson are pretty random.

That figure becomes a little bit of a gamble.

If you do get that rookie card and it's got good centering and it's a nine, on a scale of one to ten, then it is a $25,000 card.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: If that card has good centering and gets a ten, there's been very few that have come to market.

They've sold bef, between $500,000 and $800,000.

GUEST: Whew, man, I didn't know that.

APPRAISER: The collectors, when they do buy this, have a big decision to make.

Currently, $25,000 to $30,000 output.

What are you going to do with it?

You feel lucky?

(both laugh) APPRAISER: 12 t, to 16 months ago, this same box would bring $75,000 or $80,000.